


in your blood

by shatou



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Beta Read, Tristan’s backstory, tristhad - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatou/pseuds/shatou
Summary: Maybe all Tristan wants is to have something to want.But it’s too late now, isn’t it?
Relationships: Galahad/Tristan (King Arthur 2004)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 85





	in your blood

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry for the gross historical inaccuracies; this is reaaally not the Tristan in Arthurian legends (but I mean the movie is already kind of AU so). Just— please don't hit me. Assume this is some medieval fantasy AU. Oh and yeah Cerdic is the Saxon king. You know, the Big Bad Boss with super long hair and a bunch of braids.

It’s not a good deal of sacrifice when you’ve got nothing to lose to begin with.

Tristan knocks his own helmet to the ground and knocks Cerdic’s man down just as fast. Neither he nor Cerdic bats an eye as the man falls to his knees gurgling. Just another life lost among hundreds. The mutual nonchalance trickles between them almost like a kind of understanding. Just almost; for they have nothing else in common. Nothing.

Tristan holds his blade to eye level. Cerdic tilts a head at him, with a hint of something more than curiosity. Cerdic is eyeing something, and that something is not his stance, Tristan realizes. His gaze is far too high up. No, Cerdic is looking at the weave in his hair. His dirty braids.

Ah well, they do have that in common also, Tristan supposes.

Not that it matters.

They come at each other almost gracefully. Which is bad, is abnormal, is outlandish. There is nothing graceful about battles and nothing heroic about wounds or death. The illusion of grace must have come from lack of force - and this, not on Tristan’s part. Cerdic’s movements reek of reluctance. Tristan doesn’t want to know why.

Their blades scrape against one another. The screech of metal on metal does remind Tristan of Iseult’s call. But she’s not here now; he’s set her free. He sidesteps a thrust and turns around and barely nicks Cerdic’s shoulder guard.

“Who’s your father, boy?” Cerdic growls when they clash the third time. Tristan doesn’t answer because why should he?

The fourth time, he’s slashed across the front but the blade only cut his armor. He’s bruised beneath, he’s sure. “You’re not Roman,” Cerdic says, once more with that look of more-than-curiosity on his face. Tristan grunts and charges again, swings and slashes and blocks and swings back again. He is only a second too late when Cerdic finds his opening and drives the blade into his arm. 

He hears a blank, flat whistle. He’s spun around and shoved back and only when blood drips warmly down his face does he realize his ear has been sliced cleanly off, and the pain is only starting to sear. Cerdic nudges at the sword on the ground with a toe. It looks like the intention is to humiliate, but Tristan doubts it. This is no time for games. Cerdic wants something back.

Tristan bends and picks up his sword. He pays him the answer. “I’m not Roman.”

He can see his own arms tremble as he wields his weapon. He isn’t going to last, he knows. Somebody screams, somebody shouts. Everybody does. Everyone dies, he thinks, as he persists, and he asks himself, why is he doing this then? Loyalty to him is an afterthought. Why does he take on the duties that he does? He can’t think of anything that he wants for, truly. Even before he has his freedom again.

Maybe all Tristan wants is to have something to want.

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?

He crumbles to the ground, doubled over and sweating and shivering. It feels like there’s a burning torch hold to his head, where his ear is now a weeping gash. His tunic is wet and hot with blood and clings to his skin underneath torn armors. Blood wells up in his mouth, tastes like salt and steel. He keeps crawling. Everyone dies; but if there’s a sliver of life, he shall cling to it. If he hasn’t done so he would not have survived his mother’s womb. It’s only instincts.

“I tell my men not to mix blood.” Cerdic wrenches a hand in his hair, forces him upright. “We’ve no need for weak offsprings.”

Tristan hears a screech again. It could very well be just another blade scraping past blade. Yet when he looks up, he sees her, Iseult, circling the dirty, ragged cloud. He wonders if she’s watching. He wonders if she’s sentimental, or merely curious. She’s gliding to the air now, gliding down towards him, but maybe he’s imagining it. He doesn’t close his eyes, even as his own sword skewers him by the flank and pain rips through his body. Darkness eats at the corner of his eyes. His time is here. The last thing he sees will be her, Tristan thinks.

His gaze follows Iseult as she lands on Galahad.

—

_“What might you be doing here, my prince?”_

_Tristan looked over his shoulder. Her Grace smiled at him like a snake. She was not his mother. His mother died giving birth to him. She’d gone into labor early, or so they whispered. Some said she had been poisoned by the king’s mistress and Tristan was supposed to have died along with her; some said it was he himself who poisoned his own mother from within her womb. Some said she was destined to die, anyway. Pagan._

_“Tending to the birds,” Tristan said, turning around lest he be faulted for discourtesy, “Your Grace.”_

_He told nothing but the truth. He spent more time with the animals than he did at court, and his father had never seemed to mind. His Grace loved his new queen more than his own son, while Her Grace loved her own future son more than her husband’s child. It was only a matter of time before she found a way to do away with him._

_“Very well,” she said, turning on her heels. Tristan turned back to the birds and thought nothing of it._

_It all happened over supper. Meals had never been a grand deal in his father’s court. His Grace’s wealth was as meager as his entourage - even as a child Tristan knew. His father surrounded himself with flatterers and liars._

_Tristan was busy carving a thick chunk out of the meat on his plate, when a shriek resounded in the hall. He looked up in time to find the queen’s food tester falling over, spasming on the ground. Everybody had to take leave then, and Tristan only mourned the rest of his supper._

_A few days later, he was roused at the crack of dawn by the queen’s personal guards. They opened his chests and swept books of his shelves, and pried all of his drawers open while Tristan stood in a corner, rubbing at his eyes. They only stopped when they found a vial of poison, hidden somewhere in his old chest of toys. Tristan had never seen it before in his life._

_Tristan was eight. Too young for a trial, but the king would not be swayed. His Grace was convinced of the seeds of evil in his firstborn - the same force that had killed his late queen, to be sure. So Tristan was to be shipped across the sea to the country of Gaul, stripped of all claims to the throne. He was to stay with his relatives until he was of age. Penance for a crime he didn’t commit. And then he would be a man free, no burden nor charge. Nor would he have a home._

—

When he opens his eyes again, Galahad is there. Wrapped in a dark cloak and looking like he’d only just fallen asleep. Candlelight bounces off the fabric and shines softly on his curls. This is not the first time Tristan has seen him asleep at this proximity. It occurs to him, though, that this might have been the first time _he_ has been unconscious with Galahad so near.

Tristan tries to move his fingers. Pain shoots up the length of his forearm when the tiniest bit of muscle contraction upsets his torn flesh. And that’s only his arm. He winces. He’s probably not dead yet if it hurts this bad.

That doesn’t explain Galahad standing vigil by his bed, though.

 _Standing vigil_ is an exaggeration, sure; Galahad is well seated in a chair, for one, and he is not even awake. Still. He’s there. Tristan moves his other arm, the unhurt one, and finds out neither of his arms is unhurt. He grits his teeth, still, straining himself with the effort to sit up. His blanket rustles, and he can’t keep back a groan of pain. It wakes Galahad just in time.

Strong arms wrap around Tristan, easing him back onto the mattress. “Are you mad?”, says Galahad. His grimace is much softer than the usual scowl. “Don’t you dare move again.”

Tristan opens his mouth. He means to say something, but no sounds come. Galahad rises at once and fetches a skin of water, holding it to Tristan’s mouth. Water dribbles down his skin as he drinks. There’s some ale mixed in there. Tristan has to wonder whose idea it is, because it can’t possibly be Galahad’s.

Galahad settles back down into the chair and stares at him unabashedly. It’s one of the things Tristan likes in the boy. (A boy he is no more, to be sure, but he is to Tristan, and perhaps not at all in a condescending manner.) His eyes are oft intense, seeking, might be unnerving to some. His gaze and his words are made of the same flame.

“It’s good that you’re awake,” Galahad says, finally. His fingers are soft over Tristan’s brows, brushing his hair away to lay a palm flat against his forehead. “You’ve still got a light fever.” He draws his hand back, and Tristan rasps, “No.”

It’s the fever, Tristan tells himself. Merely the fever. But he wants it - wants the touch of skin on skin, wants something tangible that he can hold onto. Maybe he will fall asleep again, and Galahad would’ve left his spot for Gawain for all Tristan cares, but for now… for now…

“Don’t worry,” Galahad says, voice soft and quiet and nearly melodic. He sings quite well, Tristan recalls, and thins his lips, and lifts his gaze, lets it wander along Galahad’s bare arms. Galahad doesn’t retreat anymore; his hand slides down to frame the side of Tristan’s face. His palm fits against Tristan’s jaw like it belongs there. “I’m here.”

“Good,” Tristan breathes. Then, “Did you kill him?”

Galahad nods. His other hand finds Tristan’s, somehow gentle enough that Tristan feels no pain in his arm.

“Where’s Iseult?”

“She left.” Galahad pauses, and sighs, and says quickly, “She only came to lead me to you.”

Tristan cracks a smile. Even that hurts now, but he doesn’t mind it. Galahad doesn’t seem amused. They fall into silence as Galahad strokes into his blood-matted hair. Fingers knead against his scalp, over bandages, soothing.

—

_Killing in itself was not pleasurable. Wielding a weapon, however, was. Holding power against another being, was. Bargaining with blood and bones, was. Tristan had gotten used to this. So had his brothers, as it seemed; or maybe some of them truly had acquired a sort of bloodlust. Just as well. As long as it served in battle, it didn't matter._

_Still, Tristan took it upon himself to stand guard beside him while Galahad retched behind the bushes. No mockery; he was never one for wordly cruelty, anyway. And the boy was still so green._

_“First time killing, boy?”, asked Tristan when he was done. Galahad glared at him, shiny-eyed and indignant. He took out his skin of water and drank, probably to avoid answering as they walked back._

_“No shame in that, you know.”_

_“In vomiting my guts out?” Galahad said, tart and terse._

_“In killing,” Tristan answered, just as curt, and cut forward. If Galahad wanted to call himself one of them, he had better learn in time._

—

It’s a good few moments later when Tristan asks, “Still wants to go home?”

“Home’s here,” Galahad answers without a second of hesitation. _Here?_ , Tristan thinks, _On this island?_ Out of them all, Galahad was the youngest, and has always been the least amused by massacres, the most eager to complete his years of service.

The candle flickers. “That’s quick. When did you take a bride?” 

Galahad laughs. A rare treat, especially when it comes to the things Tristan says. Galahad‘s laughter is a graceless, guffawed thing, but it’s full and whole and genuine. His face seems to flush a little, and for a second Tristan wonders if it is actually true. That Galahad has fallen in bed with someone, be it before or after Badon Hill. 

“Not yet,” Galahad says, which is… telling. Tristan sighs. For a man who proclaims to not want for anything, he sure does want a lot of things in this moment.

“Congratulations.”

“I said not _yet_.”

“Sooner or later, ey, pup?”

“Tristan.” Galahad calling him by name is always a startling sign. He isn’t smiling anymore, but his eyes twinkle. “Is that disappointment that I hear?”

Perhaps a trick of the light. Tristan tilts his head, conveniently into Galahad’s hand. “What if it is?”

The next moment, Galahad’s lips are on his.

It’s soft and light and fleeting. So very chaste. It leaves him wanting for more, so much more. Galahad’s face has turned a shade pinker, but he only pulls back by the breadth of a hair as if daring Tristan to make sport of him. Tristan tilts his head so that their noses rub together, and Galahad makes a little humming sound that feels like warm wine pouring into Tristan’s belly.

“Do it properly next time, my boy,” he says.

“You heal properly first,” quips Galahad. He pulls away, but slowly so.

“Give me your words and you will have mine.”

Galahad laughs, again. This is worth more than a kingdom, Tristan thinks, but he still finds it in him to want _more_.

“I promise, Tristan,” Galahad whispers, planting another kiss on his brows. “I promise.”

—

Tristan doesn’t know when he’s fallen asleep. Comes morning, he awakes to the feeling of Galahad’s hand in his.


End file.
